🗣️Brinkmanship- A Form of Verbal Abuse 🗣️

During my marriage, it got to a place when every discussion about our differences of opinion or issues about the future ended the same way. He’d look at me and then he’d say, ‘Well, if you’re so unhappy, why don’t you just leave?

Of course, I didn’t want to leave; I wanted to work things out. But when he said that, I’d panic and backtrack, and—believe it or not—end up apologizing for supposedly complaining.

Brinksmanship is a cousin to stonewalling—one of the behaviors most destructive to a relationship- in that it’s a tool of control and manipulation, meant to stun you into silence. And submission. It effectively stops the discussion on a dime since you can only agree or disagree; you either stay or leave.

Parents use brinksmanship as a way of getting kids to toe the line by saying, “If you hate it here, maybe you should move in with a friend. Or maybe you want me to contact social services and find you a foster family.”

While brinksmanship was used often, it usually wasn’t the only form of verbal abuse the child experienced; many reported being ignored, marginalized, laughed at, or given the silent treatment, all of which are forms of verbal abuse. Sometimes, the story was extreme.

Brinksmanship comes up more frequently when parents are divorced.  It’s a tactic of control and manipulation.  One parent threatens to send the child to live with the other parent if they misbehave or displease the parent.

If you grew up around verbal abuse, the chances are good that you rationalized or normalized it during your childhood and usually deep into adulthood. When it’s our parents who verbally abuse us, most of us will deny it and look away for as long as possible to avoid the pain of the truth. And these habits of mind make it more likely that you’ll experience verbal abuse in your adult relationships.

Because all verbal abuse is about power and control, the person who uses brinksmanship has to be willing to give up the control it gives him or her and let go of the rush of power that comes with it. He or she has to be willing to talk, discuss, and, yes, compromise, which may be a very tall order. Speak to a counselor and remember that the only person you can change is you.